Jackson Junge Gallery is starting off their 2026 season with I’m fine, a solo exhibition featuring 14 paintings by in-house artist, Sam Arnold. I’m fine is an introspective art exhibition reflecting on the unique intersection of health and creative expression. The show is a documentation of Arnold’s health journey, exploring whether her artwork reflects the intensity of what she’s going through, or if she’s simply become really good at masking pain. Most people don’t realize Arnold’s work is deeply personal—they just see “happy paintings.” But each one is her way of escaping, of traveling when she physically can’t. I’m fine offers a window into the evolving landscape of Arnolds’s internal and external world.

Viewers of Sam Arnold’s bright work may be surprised to learn that the artist’s life has been chronic pain and PTSD for 14 years. For Arnold, illness is a full-time job - juggling appointments, insurance, treatment research, and just getting through the day. She reports having 220 doctors appointments last year and taking 28 pills a day. There’s always been a contrast between Arnold’s bright and colorful artwork, and the dark things going on. Previously, she has let people form their own ideas about her art without revealing this. But this is Arnold’s life. She makes decisions every day regarding how illness impacts her, that most people don’t have to think about. For years, she has wanted to challenge herself to be more open and vulnerable and to make her pain more obvious in her work instead of masking and saying “I’m Fine”.

September 2024 presented a unique opportunity for Arnold. The prospect of starting a new pain management treatment inspired the artist to record her upcoming medical journey through painting. I’m fine is a journal of Arnold’s year, each painting a monthly entry. The first, “September 2024”, pictures a bright blue and green coastal landscape, representative of Arnold’s optimism before starting a new treatment that her quality of life would improve. Unfortunately, Arnold would undergo an extremely adverse reaction and be forced to change her plans. Going from one treatment to another is no unfamiliar experience for someone with chronic illness. Arnold thus decided it was natural to continue documenting her experiences. “November 2024” saw experimentation with another failed treatment plan reflected in the month’s painting. A bold landscape with golden yellow fields speckled by green trees and a cool blue river running through. Intense pink lines break up the river, literal illustrations of pain running through Arnold’s body. Six months of surgery followed.

Sam Arnold would spend most of the past year focusing on both her physical and mental health while creating art about it - chronicling multiple procedures, surgeries, med changes, and weekly sessions with both a therapist and psychologist. Arnold wanted to work true to her changing feelings through the year. Every month she would put away her other paintings, so they didn’t influence each other. “February 2025” sees a stark evolution to an abstract style different from the more representational works of the previous 5 months, which becomes even more jarring in “March 2025”, a green painting streaked with aggressive yellow and red smears which Arnold explains as a manifestation of her anger this month towards her increasing medical issues. March is the only painting missing Arnold’s meticulous black outlining iconic to her work. Arnold shared how difficult it was not to return to the painting and “finish” it with her outline, but she resisted to stay true to March’s emotions.

Pain is a common theme for Sam Arnold living with chronic illness, and extensively represented in her work the past year. Grief is another type of pain that Arnold sadly portrays, experiencing the loss of two family members in January and July. Amongst all the vulnerability Arnold shows in I’m fine, she’s described the paintings from these two months as being the most deeply personal. “January 2025” paints an aerial map of the broken bridge between Florida and Sanibel Island in intense shades of teal and navy. A devastating hurricane destroyed the bridge and Arnold’s family property on the island. The visual of the broken bridge represents Arnold’s inability to visit the place most cherished by her lost family member, keeping her from them, and symbolic of the pain of their passing.

Another unique aspect of I’m fine is the participation of the artist’s therapist, who has agreed to write a few phrases describing the artist’s mental state after sessions from September 2024 to September 2025. Arnold has not seen these notes, but they will be revealed at the opening of her exhibition, which she has said is “terrifying and vulnerable, but also feels incredibly important.” I’m fine has been an experiment to see if Arnold’s paintings reflect what she has going on, or if she has continued to mask her pain within her bright work. Arnold has found some pieces more outwardly reflective of her pain than usual, especially those with decaying figures like the decomposing Elmo plushie being overtaken by leaves in “December 2024” or the degraded baby doll in “June 2025”. However, other pieces still feel like they conceal Arnold’s pain such as the finale, “September 2025”. She imagined the last piece as being a joyful conclusion to a year of successful treatments, but instead Arnold frustratingly feels she is in the same place she was a year ago. So even if the colorful landscape of September does feel joyful, it is only because Arnold has returned to masking pain in her art. Creating I’m fine may not have been as cathartic as Arnold hoped, in fact it was hard and uncomfortable, but she still believes that hard things are worth trying.

Arnold hopes that her artwork will contribute to the conversation on mental health. From her art, you may discover that you don’t always know what is going on in people’s lives. People may not outwardly admit to their feelings, even an honest person like Arnold unintentionally hides her pain in her upbeat demeanor. View her meaningful exhibition, I’m fine, at Jackson Junge Gallery January 12th – March 1st, 2026. The gallery will be holding the exhibition’s opening reception on Friday, January 16th, from 6pm - 9pm, free and open to the public. It is curated by Owner Chris Jackson, Gallery Director Kaitlyn Miller and Assistant Gallery Director Kristen Arcus.